Verizon 4G LTE ‘blows away’ Sprint’s WiMAX in 1,000 speed tests

Sprint is no longer the “4G king,” BTIG Research analyst Walter Piecyk proclaimed on Friday following a massive speed test that pitted Sprint’s HTC EVO 4G against Verizon Wireless’ HTC ThunderBolt. Piecyk and his team conducted more than 1,000 speed tests in New York City to determine which was faster: the ThunderBolt, running on Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE network, or the EVO 4G, running on Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network. The analyst found that Verizon’s offering was consistently and significantly faster than Sprint’s 4G phone. The speed tests were conducted using the integrated mobile hotspot functions on both devices, and the testers were equipped with both an Apple iPad 2 and a Toshiba laptop for the tests. In the tests, Verizon’s LTE network averaged speeds of 9Mbps down and 5Mbps up while Sprint’s WiMAX network averaged about 1Mbps both down and up. Verizon’s LTE speeds peaked at 19Mbps down and 10Mbps up during the tests. Piecyk also found that Verizon Wireless’ LTE network was more reliable than Sprint’s WiMAX offering, and it offers better coverage. Adding insult to injury, he says the ThunderBolt has better battery life than the EVO 4G as well. Hit the break for a chart mapping out BTIG’s findings.

Does anyone even use sprint 4g? All my friends keep it turned off, what a waste.

Cer

With the Thunderbolt it’s highly advisable to also turn off LTE. Just do a search for Thunderbolt battery tips. The #1 tip, just like with the EVO, is to turn off 4G. I know I keep my LTE off on my Thunderbolt.

Wcurrin

cue the “oh yeah, but….” i need to justify my network posts…..I just read some of the comments for laughs nowadays…..vzw article…..all the at&t or sprint people get their panties in a wad, at&t article, vzw people get their panties in a wad……..and everyone has their own miracle phone that somehow outperforms any of the test ever done in these articles……

Anonymous

Wow, what a limited-scope test. In Pittsburgh, Ive been seeing around 11-17mbps down off-peak on VZW LTE(absolutely no one on the network here), and approx. 10-12mbps down off-peak on WIMAX. So… 6 one way, half dozen the other. They both rock! Except, you can get unlimited data for a flat fee from Clear (and Sprint), and you can’t do that with Verizon.

Anonymous

Actually, I don’t think they have set limits on VZW data plans…yet.

Anonymous

looking through the terms of service the following looks to apply to both phone and data cards

“Verizon Wireless strives to provide customers the best experience when using our network, a shared resource among tens of millions of customers. To help achieve this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand. Our proactive management of the Verizon Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95% of data customers aren’t negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few users.”

so, no they don’t have a set limit, but rather a variable limit where the top 5% of data users are throttled no matter what the usage looks like. Not bad, unless of course you are in the top 5% of users, but what are the chances of that…

Anonymous

You are right, I forgot about the Thunderbolt still having unlimited phone and hotspot data until May 15th. I was thinking of the VZW LTE PC modems having the tiered plans, and Clear and Sprint’s Mobile hotspot devices offering unlimited. My bad.

Deval

For the last time, WiMAX or LTE is only 1/4 of the story, and those who are going to ride that are just dumb. Let’s break it down for the armchair experts shall we?

For a wireless device to work, it connects to a cell site using some frequency and some spectrum. That said cell site has equipment which is configured to work on a certain technology, and connected to the Internet through some kind of fiber pipe, known as backhaul. So, to review, we have a few different pieces of the pie, spectrum, frequency, cell site technology, and backhaul. Out of those 4, what makes a larger impact on speed is backhaul and frequency. 2500mhz (2.5ghz), which is what Sprint uses, is great for blanketing coverage, but needs 2x towers to penetrate buildings. The underlying cell site technology, be it LTE, WiMAX, HSPA+, etc. does not matter. Spectrum will matter when you have capacity issues, backhaul will matter for maximum throughput from the cell site.

I hope this helps?

Obisununome

Thank you for breaking it down. Some people run with anything. The true test is going to be in a year or so. If we all remember the eve was really fast the first month. Then it slowed down due to sprint and clearwire adding new subscribers each month. Wimax has been around the market since 2007 Kirkland, Washington first site. Every network will suffer the speed loss with that rapid of an expansion.

Deval

You’re welcome!

Romanrtl

This not correct at all,mi run test on my evo and download speed is well over 6mbps. I have to Amit the evo is really slow when being usedbas a hotspot

Sonya

Relax everyone, this is just an April Fools Joke…

Racer J

Backhaul and frequency play a huge part of speed but don’t forget the BIGGY-

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!

You might be lucky to hit 30mph in a car in NYC, I can drive 140+mph down my road, same principal with wireless networks. Open roads are a wonderful thing.

serpentor

How long is the road you can drive 140 on?

Anonymous

This Walter Piecyk is a jackass. He does very limited polls or tests and makes broad claims based on them. But I guess we are the suckers cuz we keep reading his crap.

http://www.vgchartz.com SuperChunk

Wouldn’t this be more meaning full if they spread it out accrosss multiple markets where both techs are represented vs just NY?

Theedgeace

Would anyone give credence to the possibility that WiMax may have more users since it was released first. That Could definitely be affecting throughput. Also there have been wimax phones for almost a year now and there is only one LTE phone running on Verizons network. It may be safe to conclude that the test is being skewed by usage on the network.

Andrewmartinez84

Pretty much what everyone figured it would be. LTE is the best nobody ever doubted it. Just can’t wait till fresno ca gets some love this year.

drew dogg

VZW>comp

Periks19

Worst article ever and bgr reputation is really starting to degrade. Why post a shitty article than in reality doesnt equal to vzw being faster if not done on the entire USA. Seriously you come to the conclusion that verizons 4g lte is faster than sprint wimax by them jusf comparing one citie?

Sour

Been running speed tests on my Evo all afternoon after reading this.

Peaked at 9Mbps Average 6Mbps, lows in the 4.5Mbps range. Out here in Oregon, testing on servers in Wichita, SLC, and Idaho falls. Latency as low as 170 and as high as 340. I will email anyone these results/screenshots, including BGR.

Long story short, the above research is useless, any statistician will tell you the same thing. And why test it on an iPad?

Sean76

My TB is insanely fast…way faster then my EVO was running on Wimax 4G

Anonymous

Too bad VZW sucks ass in the customer service aspect of the business. That company blows chunks. They will probably never ever get my business again.

Homer

Yeah, they’ve definitely developed the “we’re the biggest and the best so we can do what we want and charge as much money as we want, and if you don’t like it then get the f**k out” kind of attitude… and it’s going to bite them in the ass if they keep it up. I work in wireless and I’ve been seeing a steadily increasing number of unhappy Verizon customers.

Cer

This is based on, what, two encounters with VZW customer service? My two encounters have been delightful, which means that VZW customer service must be delightful across the board, right?

Stop with your anecdotal evidence.

Homer

I get roughly 4 or 5 every day now actually, and I’m sure more stores than just mine are getting these complaints… all saying the same thing, “Verizon’s customer service isn’t anywhere near as good as they used to be and the prices are getting ridiculous, I’ve had enough”

If you sat in my store for a week you would see that the evidence is actually concrete.

Cer

And what are these people doing as a result? Whining and signing new
contracts, or are they going elsewhere?
What are the majority of the complaints about?

Jaburk

Sprint’s WiMax is horrible. I’ve had the EVO for 8 months and like the phone (minus the horrible battery life) but WiMax is useless. I travel frequently and have experienced slow speeds and spotty coverage almost everywhere on WiMax. I had Clear WiMax for home internet and a Clear hotspot and had to cancel both due to such poor and inconsistent speeds. Plus Clear is broke and expansion of their network has almost come to a halt which means Verizon’s LTE coverage will surpass Sprint’s this year even though Sprint had a BIG head start. As much as I hate it, I’m ready to dump Sprint and go with Verizon. They may cost more but I need the coverage and reliability.

Obisununome

I did a test against my friends thunder bolt vs evo in Minneapolis and the thunderbolt was faster. I got 8 he got 13, but he is on a network that isn’t crowded yet.. Give it time and I bet the lte will slow down a bit. Not too mention, what’s all that speed for if your capped. Like having a Ferrari but can only go around the block a couple times. Not too mention Watch a couple Netflix movies and your done for the month. It’s nice but I’ll pass for now. Take the lid off and I’m sold.

Cer

The Thunderbolt data plan is capped? What, at like 5GB? Oh my.

Cer

Can BGR offer a research analyst article opt-out option, like how many sites allow you to filter out the Apple news at WWDC time? These articles are such a waste of time.

http://rt-now.com/ Rob T

AT&T will dominate soon

lager1829

not in our lifetime, dude

Ed

This is hardly fair as they only tested in one market. I get 15 meg down on my Evo and 2 meg up here in south florida.

Anonymous

It’s actually very useful information if they’d just a a couple words to the headline. “in NYC”